Bernanke

I think the likelihood of Big Ben not getting reappointed is zero to nil. The press is making major hay with this. This has caused a mini crash in the market today. These news events are the absolutely toughest things to trade without a doubt. So while I think it's highly unlikely Big Ben loses his seat and this cascade lower in many leading stocks is a huge buying opportunity -- if Big Ben goes down I don't even know what kind of selloff we would face. My best guess right now is at least 7-8% (more) and possibly as high as 20-25% total. We have baked in 3-4% already.

The reality is that any other Fed Governor taking Big Ben's place will likely act in a very similar manner but the market is a confidence game and if you lose that calling bottoms can prove quite elusive. The regulatory banking news was enough to take in one week. Couple that with these Bernanke stories and we have the nastiest week since at least July if memory serves.

Bottom line, if Big Ben goes down all my prior predictions on the year, on stocks, on targets etc... go out the window, and it will be a game of intraday trading and shorting for a good while I suspect. Let's all hope and pray that cooler heads come to a proper consensus over the weekend. For if we lose the market here to a major correction (15% or greater), I also believe we will likely (65-70% odds) lose the economy to a double dip recession.....